Leveling new characters is unbearable aids - rant

Bah, all this fuss about Viper Strike makes me want to play a character with it in a funky way at least to 92. Viper Strike was and still is a very decent option for single target, as I manage red tier maps with a couple of claws and it, in a 6L setup - with worse speed than my Static/Lightning Strike build sure, but that is on a goddamn Juggernaut with 0 chaos damage related nodes - oh, and disregarding a very capable slayer build that did manage end game content vs the trickster variation should be done with a nice post of completing the same end game content with the trickster...

And dare I remind everyone that some of us have fun using the single target real dual wield namelocking skills from leveling to end game? Heck, my berserker could manage himself fine with 7.9K HP with Kaom's Roots and no Sunder setup on boots and would be as fast the other 7.2K HP setup, but due to TencentGGG idea that "moar" = "better" (a fallacy if they don't prioritize quality over quantity), things will always remain as they are, with single target namelocking melee skill lacking identity - AoE/projectile based "melee" already manage "better numbers" due to their obscene scaling, they also keep you out of danger and allow you to damage difficult enemies a lot more often than "dancing" with a REAL melee skill...

So stop being so stressed about "some skills are worse than others" as TencentGGG will reply "it works as intended", and make those choices when you're "up to snuff" aka ENJOYING PLAYING PoE HARD MODE ON...

I play the same way haha.

Rush the level, if I'm close I'll farm it up and zerg the boss. I can't be bothered while progressing through the quests haha. Map and bosses are when I start giving a shit.

To everyone that is playing pure melee poison builds: PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS TO YOURSELF. IT WILL HURT YOUR MENTAL STABILITY

This comes from someone who has suffered a lot from a pure poison viper strike build. Looked good in poeb with 1-2m shaper dps on a 5l but bosses was the only thing it was good at. With normal content you need something that can actually hit hard so that the monsters get stunned. This is needed even more so if you are melee, because if you don't stun them, they get to attack before they die. So in high tier maps it's like facing shaper dmg without the indication of the direction it is coming from.

So please, if you do name-locking melee, do it with high on-hit damage and stun, not with poison.

Sry for offtopic but i still got mental scars from playing that build.

Wait, wait, hold the line.

Are you telling me you don't enjoy 8-10 hours of tutorial dungeon every time you wanna try a new build? What kind of person are you?

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Fruz wrote:

Right, but I'm misquoting you, right ?
I'm not, I'm quoting you, period. Things that you said.
That line about dying every couple maps was clearly related to your character, or did you imply that you took ghost dance because otherwise you would be dying every couple of mans ? Really ? With such a setup ( not well fit for Ghost dance I'm afraid ), that's the difference between being "VERY tanky" and dying every couple of maps ?

Yes, that is exactly the reason I took ghost dance. 1000+ evasion from headpiece, 300+ es from chest with that last node (read: the reason I took an evasion chest instead of es chest and the reason I have an es helmet), the dodge chance, the IAS boost, THE REDUCED DAMAGE TAKEN SCALING WITH KINTSUGI, among other things. That is exactly why I took those nodes, and the 40% ias boost is up quite frequently because I get hit just about once or twice per pack which is exactly enough to trigger it regularly. I still have a vaal skill that could be optimized and I've considered running vaal discipline with it.

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Fruz wrote:

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Legatus1982 wrote:

PPS : why did you build a viper strike trickster .... without taking patient reaper and prolonged pain as ascendancies ? That's one of the big thing that trickster gives for dot build, the survivability and dps boost from there is just amazing honestly.

The build desperately needs survivability against enemies that aren't dying yet because the DOTs take time to materialize. Escape artist and weave the arcane, when built correctly, provide that survivability. It's not worth trading for the damage.

Dying every couple maps or rerolling every damage mod is not acceptable, even in SC leagues, IMO.

I'm REALLY not sure how you can read that and take away from it that my build currently dies too much. Still looks like misquoting/trolling, but I'm not going to waste any more time with you, you're pretty much always doing this stuff.

If you want to say the build is doing some things incorrectly that's fine, you correctly identified that I'm not using my ES properly (because I was planning to get ES leech eventually but have none right now) and that the build is a shitty namelocking skill. You've also probably seen that the tree is a fucking mess because I was in the middle of transitioning it from partial hit damage to all dot damage and quit because VS is shit. But you keep spamming that I'm dying on that build AND I'M NOT. I stopped playing it because I don't like VS anymore, not because of the build dying a lot. That build is tanky as goddamn shit and you won't find any tankier shadows.

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Legatus1982 wrote:

That build is tanky as goddamn shit and you won't find any tankier shadows.

lol

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Fruz wrote:

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Legatus1982 wrote:

That build is tanky as goddamn shit and you won't find any tankier shadows.

lol

It actually is kind of funny, since the build you linked me was a 5.8k life duelist with nothing in the way of survivability save for fortify, which I already have on my character, apparently "doing shaper", and that's your suggestion for how to build a melee dot character of all things

But hey, who am I to judge

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Pyrokar wrote:

To everyone that is playing pure melee poison builds: PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS TO YOURSELF. IT WILL HURT YOUR MENTAL STABILITY

This comes from someone who has suffered a lot from a pure poison viper strike build. Looked good in poeb with 1-2m shaper dps on a 5l but bosses was the only thing it was good at. With normal content you need something that can actually hit hard so that the monsters get stunned. This is needed even more so if you are melee, because if you don't stun them, they get to attack before they die. So in high tier maps it's like facing shaper dmg without the indication of the direction it is coming from.

So please, if you do name-locking melee, do it with high on-hit damage and stun, not with poison.

Sry for offtopic but i still got mental scars from playing that build.

This thread got me interested and I'm currently leveling up a viper striker ascendant (jugg + slayer).

I've got two VS gems, one for ST (high phys is the focus) and another for AOE (melee splash + ruthless). I'm currently using flicker strike for movement, mostly because it's a cool way to move around, although that will probably change to whirling blades later.

My intention is shield + dagger, Acro / Pacro, self cast IC + inc dur, grace + temp chains as auras (use AA on hexproof maps in place of temp chains). With a bit of block adders, I can get high-20s block even with the penalty from Acro. I'm considering putting blind gem somewhere, although I'm not sure where. I'm hoping that with all those layered defenses, she'll do OK.

She'll have a lot of crit chance / multiplier and good damage overall. I'm toying with putting bloodlust on the ST version and getting chance to bleed somewhere (passives perhaps, or chance to bleed gem on a melee range totem).

My guess is that (most) bosses won't be quite as big an issue as huge packs, so temp chains might prove to be a highly effective defense for most maps (as well as a damage boost).

I only play SSF, so I can read about high end builds like the one the OP is describing but I'll probably never attain anything like it.

Here's my planned passive tree:

Haha, VS.

It's not only the gutted poison mechanic, but a skill which requires MS+splash to work as main. While in practice it barely works full supported (vile toxins/swift affliction/deadly ailments/void manipulation/MPD). And basically needs 8L for mediocre if not poor performance, compared to a great magnitude of other melee skills.
The high base weapon aside.
Could be ok as a single taget in 5/6L, though. Kek.

It's a whole new level of masochism, agreed.

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Legatus1982 wrote:

But hey, who am I to judge

Somebody whose paper PoE probably works for white normal maps, and who has no actual endgame experience with it ?

PS : that other slayer has videos in the thread.

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EnjoyTheJourney wrote:

...

since you're going for 2 setups, why not Viper Strike for single target ... and another skill that actually clears well ?
could be BF, reave or many other skills.
Even spec throw.